13 May 22 | Israel, Media Freedom, Opinion, Palestine, Ruth's blog
Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
This week I was planning to write about the Queen’s speech, delivered this week by HRH Prince Charles, as the British Parliament began its new parliamentary session and the Government outlined it parliamentary priorities. There are now six proposed pieces of legislation by the British Government that will impact our collective rights to both freedom of expression and privacy in the United Kingdom. But my views on the ideological incoherence of the Government’s approach to freedom of expression will have to wait until next week.
Because today we mourn the death of another journalist. On Wednesday, Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known and well regarded Palestinian-American journalist was killed while doing her job in Jenin.
According to Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) Shireen is the 17th journalist to have been killed in the line of duty in 2022. Index has fought to defend the rights of journalists for over fifty years. Every attack on a journalist is an effort to stop people speaking truth to power. It’s an attempt to quash dissent and to impose a single world view. And every death seeks to silence not just the voice of journalists but through them the voices of all of us. We cannot allow those who seek to repress their populations to win.
Today our thoughts and prayers are with Shireen’s family and loved ones. And as much as we mourn her today, we remember and honour the work and sacrifices made by her, her family and the sixteen other journalists who have lost their lives in 2022.
6 January – John Wesley Amady, Haiti
6 January – Wilguens Louis-Saint, Haiti
9 January – Pu Tuidim, Myanmar
17 January – Alfonso Margarito Martinez Esquivel, Mexico
5 February – Rohit Biswal, India
9 February – Evariste Djailoramdji, Chad
10 February – Heber Lopez Vasquez, Mexico
23 February – Maximilien Lazard, Haiti
1 March – Yevhenii Sakun, Ukraine
13 March – Brent Renaud, Ukraine
13 March-1 April – Maks Levin, Ukraine
14 March – Oleksandra Kuvshynova, Ukraine
14 March – Pierre Zakrzewski, Ukraine
15 March – Armando Linares Lopez, Mexico
23 March – Oksana Baulina, Ukraine
Late March – 2 April – Mantas Kvedaravicius, Ukraine
11 May – Shireen Abu Akleh, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Each of these brave journalists needs to be remembered and celebrated for their work and their sacrifice. And their families need and deserve both the truth and, most importantly, justice.
29 Apr 22 | China, Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Physical attacks on journalists have increased dramatically over the past year, according to the latest annual report from the Council of Europe Platform on media freedom in Europe.
The platform, of which Index on Censorship is a partner, reports on serious threats to the safety of journalists and media freedom in Europe in order to reinforce the Council of Europe’s response to the threats and member states’ accountability.
The new report, Defending Press Freedom in Times of Tension and Conflict, reveals that the number of cases involving the safety and physical integrity of journalists has jumped by 51% year-on-year, with 82 cases reported to the platform.
Many of the attacks on journalists have taken place during public protests.
“Violence against journalists during street protests is fed by a wave of media bashing and an avalanche of hate speech on social networks – very often prompted by political figures – which directly target journalists, questioning their independence and legitimacy and therefore making them more vulnerable to physical aggression,” the report says.
Overall, the number of alerts in all categories published by the CoE platform has sky-rocketed to 280 in 2021, up from around 200 in 2020 and more than double the level reported in 2016. Of the 280 alerts, 110 related to the harassment and intimidation of journalists.
Index’s policy and campaigns manager Jessica Ní Mhainín
Speaking at the launch of the report, Index’s policy and campaigns manager Jessica Ní Mhainín highlighted cases of impunity in CoE’s report.
“Impunity for crimes against journalists refer to failure of states to identify, prosecute and punish anyone including the assailants and masterminds involved in committing a crime against a journalist,” she said. “Cultures of impunity contribute to self-censorship by making journalists more vulnerable to pressures out of fear of reprisals or harm.”
Some 35 cases of impunity have been registered on the platform since 2015 and two new impunity cases – those of Turkish journalist Uğur Mumcu, murdered in 1993, and Turkish-Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adalı, murdered in Cyprus in 1996 – were added to the impunity category during the year.
“In 2021, we welcomed the Slovak Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the not-guilty verdicts of the suspected masterminds of the 2018 murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. The case will be heard in the Specialized Criminal Court later this year,” said Ní Mhainín.
Last year also saw the publication of a 438 page-report from the public inquiry into the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, which concluded that the state of Malta “must bear responsibility for the assassination because it created an atmosphere of impunity”.
“We once again call on the Maltese authorities and the Commission of Experts to implement the recommendations of the Public Inquiry,” said Ní Mhainín.
Russia, Turkey and Ukraine account for 60% of all the cases relating to impunity on the platform. Last October marked the 15th anniversary of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s murder.
Ní Mhainín said, “The masterminds of her murder are still at large, sending the incredibly dangerous message that killing a journalist is a low-risk crime.”
Yet impunity is not restricted to these countries.
A BBC Spotlight investigation has uncovered serious concerns over the police investigation and the failure to prosecute those behind the murder of Irish journalist Martin O’Hagan, who was killed in September 2001 for his reporting on paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland. The concerns raised in the programme, which aired on 2 March 2022, came in the wake of several Police Ombudsman reports that uncovered collusive behaviour between the police and loyalists in Northern Ireland. According to the BBC’s investigation, police did not act on important information – including individual names – that were handed over to them within 48 hours of the murder. The journalist’s family are now taking legal action against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Ministry of Defence.
“Press freedom is the canary in the coal mine – it is a key indicator of the clear and worrying degree of democratic backsliding that is taking place across Europe,” said Ní Mhainín. “That’s why we once again call on Council of Europe member states to ensure that the highest priority is given to conducting thorough and transparent investigations into all crimes against journalists and we remind member states of the 2016 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers which requires states ‘adopt appropriate criminal law provisions to prevent impunity’”
24 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
A Ukrainian journalist detained by Russia’s FSB while reporting on the invasion of the country has been forced to record a video saying that she had not been held captive and that her captors had actually saved her life before being released.
Victoria Roshchina, who works for the hromadske news channel, was released on 21 March, nine days after she went missing in the occupied city of Berdyansk en route to Mariupol. Four days after she went incommunicado, hromadske learned that she had been detained by Russia’s FSB security forces.
She has now returned to Zaporizhia, an area controlled by the Ukrainian government, where she will rejoin her worried family.
After her release, pro-Russian media and Telegram-channels shared a video in which Roshchina denied she had been held in captivity and that the officers had saved her life.
Her employer said that the video was filmed under coercion of the Russian occupiers and that the reporter would tell the true story in due course.
We reported about Roshchina’s reports from the front line and how she had been forced to hide from Russian tanks.
Although Roschina has been freed, the whereabouts of other journalists reporting from the front line is uncertain.
Renowned Ukrainian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Maks Levin disappeared on 13 March in the Vishgorod district, near Kyiv. There had been intensive fighting in the area and it is assumed he has been injured or captured by Russian troops.
Levin has worked for the BBC, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and new website LB.ua among others.
Index on Censorship calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists held by the Russian forces and for all parties to ensure the safety of media reporting on the war.
18 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Statements, Ukraine
Victoria Roschina (or Roshchina), a journalist who works for the Ukrainian news channel we wrote about earlier this week, has gone missing while reporting on the war in the country and is believed to have been detained by Russian FSB security forces.
On 11 March, according to hromadske, Roschina left the city of Energodar to travel to Mariupol to report on what was really going on in the city, which has been shelled by Russian troops every day for more than two weeks.
The TV station has been unable to contact Roschina since 12 March when she is known to have been in the occupied city of Berdyansk.
On 16 March, the station learned that Roschina had been detained by the Russian FSB but nothing is known about her whereabouts.
“For two days we made every effort to release the journalist in a private manner. But it turned out to be ineffective. Therefore, we call on the Ukrainian and international community to join in the information and action to the release of hromadske journalist Victoria Roschina,” the channel said in a statement.
The channel (whose name means public) was founded originally as an independent TV station and prides itself on its freedom from control by oligarchs or the state even after Yanukovych was forced to flee by the “Maidan” protests of 2014. Over the years journalists at the station have adapted to shifts in the media landscape and now streams topical videos on YouTube and Facebook with special reports every Tuesday and Thursday.
In a Facebook post published before she disappeared, Roschina said she would “never forgive Russia”.
She wrote: “The other day I came across a column of Russian tanks in the Zaporozhzhya region. On the way there I saw a burnt car, a little further another with the burnt body of a man next to it. As it turned out, he was a civilian from the village.
“Then – the roar of tanks, the white letter Z, the flag of the Russian Federation. They came out of the turn and headed in our direction.
“Me and the driver switched to reverse gear and tried to turn around. The Russians began to ‘work’ [e.g. shoot] us actively. First bullets, and then red-hot shells. Fortunately, they flew by. I commanded the driver to stop, drop the car and lie down in the field. But the columns came in our direction and an abandoned house came to our rescue, behind [which we] waited for the Russian military hardware to pass by.
“Then we were saved by good people. While we were hiding, our car was opened although it had a PRESS sticker. They took away my laptop, camera, backpack…and the driver’s cigarettes.
“No connection, no light. Tanks on both sides of the village. We are surrounded and unable to pass on information. The scariest thing under occupation is night. Dawn still inspires hope for the best. In our case it did not start with shelling or [hiding in] the basement. Around 150 units of Russian hardware moved towards our peaceful villages. I went on reconnaissance on foot. Due to the stress, I felt neither tired, nor cold, nor afraid.
“I went to the regions to cover what is going on there and what people think. People who have been living without communication all this time, at the gunpoint of machine guns, [threatened by] MLRS Grad [rockets] and the rumble of Russian tanks.
“In small villages and towns, the occupiers feel that they’re ‘heroes’ [but they] shoot civilians, set cars on fire, kill, loot. They turn people’s lives into hell, traumatise the children. They took away my gear, but won’t take away the desire to tell the truth about their crimes.
“This time I was probably saved by a miracle once again.
“But I will never forgive Russia. Never. They will burn in hell. And they will definitely stand trial.”
Roschina is just one of a number of journalists and activists that have been detained in occupied areas of Ukraine according to our sources.
Index CEO Ruth Smeeth said, “Index on Censorship has always supported independent journalism throughout the world and the detention of reporters trying to report the facts can never be justified. Index on Censorship calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Victoria Roschina and other journalists held by the Russian forces.”
